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Friday, May 15, 2009

Random Thoughts

The other day I made the mistake of trying to throw something away while David was watching. You'd have to click on that link to understand why his body seized up with panic at the sight. I told him, "You know, waterboarding wouldn't even be necessary to torture you. The interrogators could just tie you up in a chair and wave an empty toilet paper tube in front of you and say, 'Talk...or it's going in the trash!'"

It only occurred to me later that this was, perhaps, a strange thing to say to an 11-year-old. Too much intake of news coverage on my part, I guess...and too many years of childrearing...

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I haven't finished up at my bookstore job yet; and the management is making my last 2 weeks there memorable by not having the store's air conditioning fixed in a timely fashion. How bad is it? It's so bad that the customers are complaining, even though they're free to leave the premises (unlike us hapless employees). We're trying to get management to relax the dress code to include shorts and bikini tops, but they seem to be rather inflexible on this issue.

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Anna made the mistake this morning of answering a question of mine with "Well, yeah..." (those of you without teens need to understand that this phrase is uttered by adolescents with the same tone and inflection as "Duh!"). Luckily (for her), she did this in the car while both my hands were needed on the wheel; so an immediate physical response from me was avoided. But I found myself wishing that my new minivan had come with an ejector button for the front passenger seat.

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A soundproof partition between the front row and the rest of the car would have been nice, also...are you listening, Toyota?

18 comments:

I love the ejector button idea. In fact, I just now laughed myself silly at the thought of a smart-ass comment from my 14 year-old, and the look of shock on her face as I press the button and she flies out of the car.

I've been dreaming about a partition in mini-vans for some time now. It would provide uninterrupted conversations with my husband, sweet ignorance of screaming matches in the back, and privacy from my oldest (9) who thinks she has the right to be in on every adult conversation-and that we actually want to hear her input.

When my kids were little, I always wanted to buy an old used limo--then there'd be that soundproof partition between me and them. They could mutter, whine, and complain all they wanted. And I'd just smile serenely and wave....

My MIL and her baby daughter once FELL OUT of her sister's car WHILE DRIVING...The door handle worked by pushing it down! My MIL leaned on it and out they went! I don't think Aunt Betty was TRYING to eject them...but you never know ;)

I myself cannot understand why vans in general do not come with the sound-proof dividing glass between the driver's seat and the passengers as standard---clearly, moms are not designing the van fleet...

Ha! We once considered buying an old limo with privacy glass for a cross-country road trip! As for me, I've always wanted to have those Star Trek communicators so I wouldn't have to yell *unless they ignored me* but what I REALLY want (and have for YEARS) is one of those zapping dog collars. Sadly, I've been told that Child Protective Services would not be humored by my use of such device. Bummer.

Every week I have to go through my 3rd grader's room with him and point out the 3 changes of dirty clothes on the floor (including socks but not including the wet stuff he left on the deck or front porch), the little bits of paper & plastic garbage... basically, the fact that I cannot WALK in his room. *sigh* Clearly, I've loosened my standards from when his older brothers were young.

Our car growing up had one! Used embassy limousines had no market then and were dirt cheap at three years old and few miles, and living near DC, Dad decided it would make him look like a successful art dealer.

Only problem is, the person in the far back spot opposite the driver was the one who controlled the radio and the going up or down of the glass partition. Which created a total mirror effect when it was up, but there were times Mom and Dad decided it was so worth it.

About Me

6 children, 1 husband (I'm boring that way). Here are the kids by name and age, to make it easy on you:
Theo (26), Anna (24), David (20), Brian (18), Rachel (15), and Susie (12, and now taller than I am).
No pictures, no real names, as my husband is totally paranoid. In a cute sort of way, of course...